Flight Rising, Responsive UI, and Accessibility
What can we do? Well, if you're able to, I really suggest filing a ticket. I personally put mine under "Accessibility". But also, let's talk about just how bad this UI update is.
Eye strain; from mild discomfort to flat-out pain
Photosensitive disorders being triggered (this might be partially due to how the pages are loading between dark mode/slate and the unconverted pages)
... And more from the issues with the UI. They've already increased the text size in the forums and changed the font back--and that's a good start for correcting some of the issues that we're currently experiencing, but overall, a lot more work needs to be done to make things more accessible for players again. Many of us are unable to play for even a few minutes without a myriad of issues.
These issues are not a "cosmetic" issue that we can adjust to. They are literally an accessibility issue that we need accommodations for (sometimes in the form of external extensions/unofficial modifications/browser modes that are purely cosmetic and otherwise don't impact gameplay), or for the site itself to be modified.
When filing a ticket, I believe that it's best to point out some specific issues, such as...:
Contrast between backgrounds, text, and windows/boxes. This applies to all modes. The black text is too dark against the stark white background in "default"; the contrast between the text and the background in dark mode is also too bright.
There are gradients in many more places, which have been leading to more eyestrain and motion sickness.
Inconsistent text sizes across the site.
I'm afraid that my brain is blanking right now, so if anyone has any suggestions on what to add to this list, please do feel free to drop them in my inbox or on this post.
If you want a quick example of what a ticket might look like, then I'll offer one below--I would personally advise against using this as a copy-and-paste for yourself, as I don't know if their ticket system flags messages that have the same exact text as spam or not (if someone does know, I would love to hear that--if it didn't and we could confirm this, I would genuinely have no qualm about someone using this as a basic message and editing it to suit their needs/editing other issues they might be having or that I've failed to mention).
I titled mine "Accessibility Issues In Responsive Layout Themes".
Hi! I wanted to discuss a few accessibility issues with the new "responsive layout" and its themes; many users are reporting nausea, dizziness, migraines, worsened eye strain, and more from using every single theme option currently available on the site.
Specific examples of what might be leading to this and causing problems for users are the high/low contrasts in each themes; the stark white background with dark text; the inverse in the dark theme; themes not being fully converted/available across the full site (the food bar and various other UI elements being red in the dark theme, for example, is very uncomfortable for many users to look at and read) as of right now, thinner/inconsistent font sizes, how these themes interact with bios [. . .]
I would like to see these worked on, as it is currently making the site genuinely unplayable for a portion of the userbase, and perhaps, in the future, seeing these themes tested by those who might be impacted by them/who they're meant to benefit before they're deployed to a wider public.
TLDR; The new UI/layout is genuinely a case of inaccessibility. If you've read this far, and if you've sent in an official ticket, then thank you so much for your time and energy.
